Phantoms of Breslau (17 page)

“There’s something else I’d like to know,” Mock said, in spite of himself. “Are you aware of any of Alfred Sorg’s friends dressing up and putting themselves at the disposal of rich ladies?”

“What does that mean, ‘at the disposal’?” Miss Rühtgard asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m still a child …”

Mock stood still and wiped the sweat from his brow. He moved away from his companion a little, aware that too many cigarettes did nothing to improve the smell of his breath. To his annoyance, Christel moved closer and her eyes grew enormous and naive.

“What does that mean, ‘at the disposal’?” she asked again.

“Do you know of four young men” – Mock stepped away from the girl again and lost his self-control – “who dress up as sailors and pleasure rich ladies? They work with your friend Alfred Sorg. Maybe Alfred dresses up and screws ladies too? Does he dress up like that for you?”

Mock bit his tongue. It was too late. Silence. A chill wind blew from the pond. The lights in South Park Restaurant began to go out. The maid was waiting for the first glow of the pink-fingered maiden before going for a walk with Bert the dog. Corpses hung on trees and floated in the water. Mock felt terrible and did not look at Miss Rühtgard.

“You’re just like my father. He’s always asking who I’ve just screwed.” Anger had turned her face to stone. “I’m going to tell him right now that you’re interested too. I’ll give him an account of our entire conversation. Then he’ll understand that people don’t stop being men and women just because they wear the words ‘father’ or ‘daughter’ on their chest. Even you, usually so self-controlled, got carried away and gloated over the word ‘pleasure’. I thought you were completely different …”

“I’m sorry.” Mock smoked the last of his cigarettes. “I’ve used inappropriate words when talking to you, Miss Rühtgard. Please forgive me. Don’t tell your father about our conversation. It would put a strain on our friendship.”

“You ought to put an announcement in the
Schlesiche Zeitung
,” Christel said thoughtfully. “It would say: ‘I dispel your illusions, Eberhard Mock’.”

Mock sat on a bench and in an effort to control himself called to mind the first verses of Lucretius’ poem “De rerum natura”, about which he had once written an essay. When he arrived at the lines describing Mars’ and Venus’ amorous rapture, he was overcome with fury. Suddenly he became aware that he was not admiring Lucretius’ hexameters at all, but imagining instead how the lovers were moving against each other, tangled up in Vulcan’s net.

“Am I to feel guilty for exposing that creature Sorg to you?” His voice hissed with annoyance. “That I spared you from having to visit a doctor of venereal diseases? You don’t have to worry about catching syphilis, do you? You’ve got one of the so-called bachelor disease’s most eminent specialists close at hand! Am I to have scruples for having shown you that your knight in shining armour is,
de facto
, a slave in the bedroom?”

“How typical!” Miss Rühtgard shouted. “A knight in shining armour! What a stereotype! Can’t you understand that not every woman is waiting for a fairy-tale prince, but for someone who will …”

“Give them a good screwing,” Mock finished furiously.

“That’s not what I had in mind,” Miss Rühtgard countered in a low voice. “I wanted to say: ‘who will love them’.” She stubbed out her cigarette on a tree. “Fred is a nice boy, but I know he’s a cad. You haven’t shattered any of my illusions about
him
, but about
you
. I opened my heart to you, but you didn’t want to listen. You gave me some beautiful lines about chaperones. You didn’t want … All you wanted was to reprimand and warn me. A policeman through and through. When will you stop being a policeman? When you’re dead? Goodnight, policeman, sir. Please don’t see me home. I think I prefer the company of drowned and hanging bodies to yours.”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919
A QUARTER TO NINE IN THE MORNING

Mock woke up in detention cell number three. Morning light edged through the small, barred window. Sounds of the usual bustle reached him from the Police Praesidium courtyard. A horse snorted, glass smashed against the cobblestones, one man swore a thousand curses at another. Mock pulled himself upright on his bunk and rubbed his eyes. He was thirsty. To his joy he spied a jug standing on the stool next to the bunk. A strong smell of mint wafted from it. The door opened and Achim Buhrack stood there. In his hand he wielded a towel and a razor.

“You’re priceless, Buhrack,” Mock said. “You remember everything. To wake me up on time, the razor, even the mint …”

“You don’t need it today, I see.” Buhrack’s eyes expressed surprise. “Today, you’re not …”

“I’m not going to need it,” Mock took the jug from Buhrack, “not today nor ever again. I’m going to stop drinking and I’m not going to have any more hangovers.” From another jug he poured some water into a basin, then took the towel and razor from the guard. “You don’t believe me, do you, Buhrack? You’ve heard a lot of promises like that, haven’t you?”

“Oh, many times over …” the guard muttered, and he left before Mock could thank him.

The Criminal Assistant took off his shirt, washed his armpits, sat on the bunk and reached into his pocket for a packet of talcum powder. He plunged his hand in it and rubbed the talc under his arms, then generously sprinkled some into his shoes. He spent the next ten minutes scraping the stubble from his face, which was no easy task seeing as the blade was blunt. Nor did it help that he had to use ordinary soap, which dried instantly and tightened his skin. Reluctantly he slipped on his shirt from the day before. “Father must be worried,” he thought. He imagined
his father hopping on one leg with a sock hanging off the other foot. “Always knocking it back,” he heard his voice nag. All of a sudden Mock longed for a bottle and the mute, empty night that followed a drinking binge. He pulled on his shoes and left the cell. He shook Buhrack’s hand warmly and made his way down the gloomy corridor through the morning hubbub coming from the cells: the groaning and the clanging of mess tins, the yawning and the passing of wind. He was glad to leave the detention wing and slowly climbed the stairs, wondering how the gunge which filled his lungs and head would react to the first cigarette of the day.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919
NINE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Everyone had arrived at Mühlhaus’ office punctually. Mühlhaus’ secretary, von Gallasen, stood a pot of hot tea and nine glasses in high metal holders on the table. The September sun burned the necks of the detectives sitting with their backs to the window and illuminated the streams of tobacco smoke. Mock stood in the doorway with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, scrutinizing those present. He felt a sharp pain in his chest. Smolorz was missing.

“What are you doing here, Mock?” Mühlhaus freed his mouth of excess smoke. “You’re supposed to be working for the Vice Department. Yesterday morning I terminated your transfer to the Murder Commission. Could it be that you’ve forgotten? Have you reported to Councillor Ilssheimer today?”

“Commissioner, sir,” Mock said, sitting down uninvited between Reinert and Kleinfeld. “In this world of ours, people have killed in the name of God and the emperor. People commit murder with a sovereign’s name on their lips. Over the past few days people have been murdered in this city in my name. The name Eberhard Mock has become this swine’s
trademark. He has murdered six people and perhaps made an orphan of a little child who wept in my arms last night. Forgive me, please, but today I don’t want to book pimps or check the medical records of whores. I’m going to sit here with you and think about how to get rid of that bastard who is murdering in my name.”

There was silence. Mock and Mühlhaus measured each other. The others stared over their steaming glasses of tea at the chief of the Murder Commission. Mühlhaus put his pipe aside, scattering shreds of blonde Virginia tobacco over his files.

“The person to decide who sits here,” he said quietly, “is myself and myself alone. It is no secret that I consider you to be an excellent policeman. That I want to see you in my commission. But after the Four Sailors case. Only then.”

Mühlhaus poked a cleaning skewer into his pipe and twisted it forcefully into the stem.

“Take a rest, go away somewhere.” Unlike the expression in his eyes, the Commissioner’s tone was exceptionally gentle. “Just for a while. Until this investigation is concluded. I don’t want any more dead bodies, so you can’t question anybody else … How do we know that the swine isn’t going to think up something else? … Or start killing everyone you talk to? … When I’ve locked him up, I’ll gladly welcome you amongst my men. I’ve spoken to Councillor Ilssheimer. He has willingly agreed to your transfer. But now you’ve got to go away. Don’t think you won’t be helping us in the investigation. Doctor Kaznicz is going to talk to you again, and you might remember some clue as to the identity of the murderer.”

Mock studied his colleagues around the table. All were contemplating the colour of the hot drink in their glasses. They had been taught to obey their superiors. They were unfamiliar with words of dissent, and they felt no guilt; it was a long time since a child had wept into their starched collars. “Don’t feel sorry for yourself, Mock. You don’t deserve any pity.”

Mock remained seated. “We all know that the murderer began with a spectacular crime, and then murdered two more people whom I had questioned. Listen to me, gentlemen! I propose …”

“We’re not interested in what you propose, Mock,” Mühlhaus interrupted him. “Are you going to let us get on with our work, or do I have to throw you out? Do I have to take disciplinary action?”

Mock stood up and approached Mühlhaus.

“First take action against your secretary, von Gallasen. He’s made a mistake too. He brought two glasses too many. There are seven of you. Smolorz isn’t here yet, and I’m no longer here.” He went to the table and with a swipe knocked over the two empty glasses, which smashed on the stone floor. He bowed and left the office of the chief of the Murder Commission.

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1919
HALF PAST NINE IN THE MORNING

The windows of Criminal Councillor Josef Ilssheimer’s large office looked out onto Ursulinenstrasse, or strictly speaking onto the gable roof of the Stadt Leipzig Hotel. Ilssheimer liked to observe one of the clerks working there who, in his spare moments, would arrange coloured pencils in a fixed and unchangeable order in his drawer, and then close his eyes, randomly pull one out, and draw a line on a piece of paper to see whether he had chosen the right one.

Ilssheimer was observing this spatial memory exercise now, but he tired of it more quickly than usual and remembered that Eberhard Mock had been sitting at his round table for a good few minutes, waiting in silence for orders or instructions.

Ilssheimer cast his eyes around his office, cluttered from floor to ceiling with files of cases which the Vice Department of Breslau’s Police
Praesidium had conducted under him over the past twenty years. He was proud of the order which reigned there and, despite the suggestions of successive police presidents, he would not allow the material to be moved to the main archives located on the ground floor.

“I’m sorry,” Ilssheimer began, “that you’re not on the Four Sailors case any more, Mock. It can’t be pleasant for you.”

“Thank you for the words of consolation.”

“But you won’t be removed from the investigation altogether.” Ilssheimer was somewhat offended that Mock had not addressed him as “Councillor sir”. “You’ll be talking to Doctor Kaznicz. He’ll draw information out of you which will help Mühlhaus apprehend the murderer.”

“I’ve already lived through one psychoanalytical session with Doctor Kaznicz and it didn’t give us anything.”

“You’re a little impatient, Mock.” Ilssheimer leaned over the man he was addressing and was disappointed; he did not detect the smell of alcohol. He began to stroll around the office, hands clasped behind his back. “And now listen to me carefully. These are your official instructions. Tomorrow you go to Bad Kudowa with Doctor Kaznicz. You’ll stay there for as long as is necessary …”

“I don’t want anything to do with Doctor Kaznicz.” Mock sensed that a heated and painful argument was going to be inevitable. “I don’t want to see him. Do you really believe, Councillor sir, that a man whom I neither trust nor like is going to draw anything out of me …”

“I understand you perfectly, Mock.” Ilssheimer blushed on hearing his title. “The doctor is equally aware of your dislike for him. That’s why he’s decided to change his method …”

“Ah, that’s interesting,” muttered Mock. “So he’s not going to talk to me about the time I stole apples from a stall any more, and he’s not going to ask what I felt when I squirted people passing under my window with a water siphon when I was six?”

“No.” Mock’s words clearly amused the Criminal Councillor. “Doctor Kaznicz is going to subject you to hypnosis. He’s a specialist in the field.”

“I don’t doubt it. But let him subject somebody else to his methods. I’m a police officer and I want to conduct a normal investigation,” Mock grew more and more worked up with every word. “People I’ve come into contact with on the Four Sailors case are dying. But I don’t have to talk to anyone personally; I don’t have to question anyone at all. Somebody else can do that … I can do it over the telephone … I’ve got an excellent and simple idea …”

“Can’t you understand, Mock, that nobody is intending to argue with you? I repeat, I’ve given you official instructions and I don’t care if you’re going to cry or stamp your feet in fury at the sight of Kaznicz.”

Silence descended. Ilssheimer glanced out of the window at the clerk exercising his memory. He decided to continue.

“You drink a great deal, Mock.” He rested his head on his hands and stared at his subordinate. There had been a time when criminals had writhed under Ilssheimer’s glare. “Many policemen abuse alcohol and this is tolerated by their superiors. But not me!” he yelled. “I do not tolerate alcoholism, Mock! Alcoholism will lead to your dismissal! Do you understand, God damn it?”